[vlc] Question from newbie: which codec to transcode to ?

[Bernard]

Hi to Everyone,

I have installed VLC only a short time ago, on my "Debian Lenny" 
Desktop, as well as on my laptop running "Ubunto Hardy Heron". Not only 
do I know next to nothing about most matters concerning this program, 
yet I hardly have any knowledge about digital video.

My purpose with VLC is to convert the video stream from a DVD, to a 
video file that can be read with a basic video player that works with my 
TV set (which, apart from TV records, only operates from External HD, 
not from DVD). I thought that any '.avi' file would work fine, since I 
already got an .avi movie file from someone, and that file plays 
allright. But the avi files that I get from a given DVD video stream 
using VLC, don't work !  No doubt that I have not chosen the appropriate 
codecs for transcoding, so I suppose... unless the problem lies anywhere 
else...

The resulting avi files DO play allright on my computer whenever opened 
with VLC, but they refuse to play with the above mentioned video player: 
according to the tested parameters, it says "Unreckognised format", or 
it says nothing and no play, or it starts playing weird figures. In the 
other hand, if I merely copy one of the videofiles from the DVD onto the 
external HD and try to play it with said video player, it does display 
fine, but with no sound !

Below is what I tested so as to obtain the avi files that refuse to play 
anywhere else than on my computers:

$ vlc VTS_01_1.VOB --sout 
"#transcode{vcodec=mpv4,acodec=mpga}:standard{mux=avi,access=file,dct=/home/bd/myfile_mpv4_mpga.avi}"

I get no error, but, as said, the resulting avi file only plays on my 
computer. I tested alternate parameters : mp2v for "vcodec" and "a52" 
for acodec, with no more success.

I also tried not transcoding at all :

$ vlc VTS_01_1.VOB --sout 
"#standard{mux=avi,access=file,dct=/home/bd/myfile_mpv4_mpga.avi}".

I found that I HAD TO give a mux parameter, otherwise I got an error 
message.

 "raw" transcoding gave huge files as expected, to no avail in terms of 
displaying on said videoplayer, which says "unreckognized file"

Maybe I should transcode such parameters as bitrate etc... but I have no 
idea about the values I should test

Thanks in advance for your help